Summer Sonic

On the first day of my holiday I went to Summer Sonic at the Chiba Marine Stadium and the Makuhari Messe Convention Centre in Chiba, near Tokyo. It's a two day music festival that has lots of western artists and a sprinkling of Japanese bands as well.

Over the two days there were lots of bands, including the Beastie Boys, Nerd, The Darkness, Avril Lavigne, Jurassic Five and The Hives. There are three sites with bands playing at at the same time, so it requires a lot of timing and rushing about to see the bands you want to see. I went on the Sunday and I saw The Ordinary Boys, The Hives, the Beastie Boys, The Mad Capsule Markets and some Japanese bands at the beach venue.

Highlights of the day were definitely The Hives, who were excellent live and I enjoyed the Beastie Boys as well, although I was a bit disappointed they didn't play much of their earlier material. Their new stuff was pretty good though and it's great to see them back after a break of six years.

This is the second time I've seen the Beastie Boys and I definitely felt my age as I realised that I originally saw them seventeen years ago in Brighton when they played with Run DMC(my very first gig). In fact a lot of people in the audience probably weren't even alive when I first saw them.

It was a brilliant day and there was a great atmosphere. I also had an enjoyable time chilling out on the beach listening to some bands and I'm very happy to learn that I'm not the world's worst dancer either(some of the Japanese kids really go for it in a way that makes me feel a lot better about my dancing prowess).


The official website for Summer Sonic is here.